PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT AND THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT ... - Stanford University · HISPANIC STUDENTS...

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT ANDTHE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF

HISPANIC STUDENTS

Community Literacy Resources andHome Literacy Practices Among

Immigrant Latino Families

Leslie ReeseClaude Goldenberg

Leslie Reese is Professor with California State University, Long Beach,CA. Claude Goldenberg is Professor with the School of Education, StanfordUniversity, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-3096. E-mail:[email protected]

The authors wish to express their deepest thanks to the families andschool personnel who made this work possible, as well as to their colleagueson the Project 4 research team: Bill Saunders, Coleen Carlson, ElsaC�aardenas Hagen, Sylvia Linan Thompson, Elizabeth Portman, Ann Adam,Liliana De La Garza, and Hector Rivera. Their thanks is also to Paul Cirinoand David Francis for assistance with database preparation. This work wassupported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health andHuman Development and the Institute of Education Sciences, P01HD39521, ‘‘Oracy=Literacy Development in Spanish-Speaking Children.’’

Address correspondence to Leslie Reese, College of Education,California State University at Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard,#ED2-267, Long Beach, CA 90840. E-mail: [email protected]

Marriage & Family Review, Vol. 43(1/2) 2008Available online at http://mfr.haworthpress.com

# 2008 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi: 10.1080/01494920802010272 109

ABSTRACT. This paper reports relationships among communities,families, and Spanish-speaking children’s language and literacy devel-opment in kindergarten and grade 1. Findings from a study of 35communities show that communities with greater concentrations ofLatinos are less likely to have printed materials, and available materi-als are more likely to be in Spanish. Communities with higher incomeand education levels have more literacy materials in English. Contraryto predictions, there are few associations among community literacyresources, frequency of children’s home reading activities, andchildren’s literacy achievement. This lack of association is due towithin-community variation in home literacy practices and to schools’impact on home literacy. However, there are associations among com-munity and family language characteristics and child literacy outcomesin Spanish and English, suggesting that at least in the early stages ofliteracy development, communities’ influence on Spanish-speakingchildren’s literacy development is through language-learning opportu-nities rather than literacy-learning opportunities per se.

KEYWORDS. Bilingual, community, family, language, literacy

INTRODUCTION

This article examines the communities in which Spanish-speaking chil-dren of immigrants are growing up and the opportunities these communi-ties offer for the acquisition of English, maintenance of Spanish, and thedevelopment of literacy skills in both languages. Ultimately, these oppor-tunities will influence children’s integration into U.S. society and theirability to maintain the language and culture of their families. The tensionbetween social integration and linguistic and cultural maintenance is pal-pable. The massive ‘‘Day Without Immigrants’’ demonstrations on May1, 2006, urging Congress to enact legislation designed to facilitate thelegal incorporation of undocumented immigrants into the workforceand ultimately into American society (Gorman, Miller, & Landsberg,2006), brought to the forefront a debate about the nature of the UnitedStates as a pluralistic and multicultural nation of immigrants. News-papers carried stories focusing on the impact of immigration on localcommunities and expressing considerable concern about the incorpor-ation of present-day immigrants into the American social fabric. In parti-cular, there was concern that contemporary immigrants, mainly from

110 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW

Latin America and Asia, are not learning English and thus notassimilating into American society as quickly as immigrants in the past(McKay & Wong, 2000). How these children fare in school and work willaffect them, their families, and the society as a whole.

Spanish-speakers are by far the largest language-minority group inthe United States, comprising more than 10% of the total U.S. popu-lation and 60% of the language-minority population (Shin & Bruno,2003). The focus of our analysis is on the relationship betweenSpanish-speaking children’s out-of-school literacy-learning opportu-nities (community and home) and their early literacy achievementin both English and Spanish. We look at ways in which the languagecharacteristics of the communities where Spanish-speaking childrenlive might influence patterns of home language and literacy use,which in turn influence early literacy achievement in English andSpanish. We pay particular attention to access to oral and writtenlanguage in the children’s first language (L1) and second language(L2) in different types of communities.

For immigrants and children of immigrants, full and equitableincorporation into American society involves at least moderately highlevels of English language proficiency and literacy attainment. Theseaccomplishments, in turn, require access to quality schooling andlearning opportunities outside of school. As a group, children fromnon-English-speaking homes tend to lag behind their mainstreampeers on both state (e.g., California Department of Education,2005) and national (e.g., Institute of Education Sciences, 2005) testsof academic achievement. Yet, as might be expected, there is a con-siderable range of outcomes among these children. On the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), for example, mostEnglish learners score below basic. However, 27% score at or abovebasic and 7% score at or above proficient (Institute of EducationSciences, 2005). Clearly, some English learners do very well in schooland beyond, while others lag far behind. What explains this variability,and can understanding its sources help us understand how to improvelearning outcomes for more children from Spanish-speaking homes?

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY INFLUENCESON LITERACY DEVELOPMENT

Family practices associated with children’s literacy developmenthave been widely studied over the past 25 years. In general, greater

Leslie Reese and Claude Goldenberg 111

amounts of literacy and oral language in the home are associated withhigher levels of children’s language and literacy development (Booth& Dunn, 1996; Hart & Risley, 1995. However, for the nearly 10 mil-lion children in the United States who come from homes where alanguage other than English is spoken–70% of whom are Spanishspeakers–the dynamics of language and literacy use in the homeand literacy attainment at school are necessarily more complex thanare those for monolingual speakers of English. These children experi-ence literacy at home in a language other than the one that ultimatelythey must master in order to succeed in school and beyond. More-over, even in homes where a language other than English is used,there is generally at least some level of English use as well.

How children growing up in multilingual communities acquireand develop literacy in one, two, or several languages have receivedincreasing scholarly attention over the past two decades (Bayley &Schecter, 2003; Martin-Jones & Jones, 2000; McCarty, 2005). Fam-ilies’ literacy practices include both the activities involving use oftext themselves, but also the cultural values, attitudes, feelings andrelationships that shape and give meaning to those activities (Barton& Hamilton, 2000; Street, 1993). With respect to immigrant Latinofamilies, studies have documented ways in which parents’ culturalexperiences guide literacy practices with their children. For example,Valdes (1996) noted that Mexican immigrant parents of kindergart-ners did not anticipate that the school expected children to knowtheir ABCs by the time they began first grade, since in Mexico abil-ity to recite the alphabet is not considered particularly important.Findings from a longitudinal study of second-generation Latino stu-dents in the greater Los Angeles area indicated that families’ homecountry experiences, including grandparents’ level of education andparents’ experience growing up in a rural versus an urban community,continued to influence children’s literacy development as late as mid-dle school (Reese, Garnier, Gallimore, & Goldenberg, 2000). Homecountry experiences of these Latino immigrant parents also servedto shape the ways in which they engaged in oral reading with their chil-dren, including their motivations for reading and their understand-ings, or cultural models, of the nature of literacy itself. However,these cultural models were not static; rather, they changed over timeas families adapted to U.S. environments and school demands (Reese& Gallimore, 2000).

Ecocultural theory (Gallimore et al., 1989; Reese, Kroesen, &Gallimore, 2000; Weisner 1984; Whiting & Whiting, 1975) provides


a useful orientation for analyzing family practices within andacross contrasting settings, taking into account cultural influenceson family practices. This approach focuses on the everyday routinesconstructed and sustained by families. A family’s routine is seen as acompromise between the structural and ecological constraints thatfamilies must live with on one hand, and the cultural values, under-standings, models and beliefs which guide and give meaning to peo-ple’s lives. Thus, ecocultural analyses encompass both the structuraland the cultural forces shaping daily life and influencing decisionsand accommodations made by individuals and families (Gallimore,Goldenberg & Weisner, 1993). An important feature of this perspec-tive is that distal environmental influences such as the socioeconomicstatus or ethnic homogeneity of the community are conceptualized asexerting an indirect influence on children’s developmental outcomesby influencing the more proximal environment with which childrenand families are engaged. With respect to literacy development,ecocultural theory predicts that family literacy practices will influencechildren’s literacy development and will be shaped and=or con-strained by proximal environmental factors such as the availabilityof literacy resources in L1 and=or L2 in the community wherefamilies live.

Recent literacy research has documented literacy practices in awide variety of communities and out-of-school settings, emphasizingthe notion of ‘‘literacies,’’ that is, that there are different literaciesassociated with different domains of life (Barton & Hamilton, 1998;Barton, Hamilton & Ivanic, 2000; Moss, 1994; Street; 1993). In astudy of the uses of written language among immigrant families inChicago, Farr (1994) described literacy practices in terms of thedomains in which these literacy acts occurred, identifying the fivedomains of religion, commerce, politics=law, family=home, and edu-cation. Participation in community literacy practices can fulfill a var-iety of purposes including reinforcement of ethnic pride and identity(Pak, 2003), participation in religious services and observations(Reese, Linan Thompson, & Goldenberg, 2005), or navigation ofdemands by government agencies such as the IRS or INS (Farr,1994). It is likely, then, that children’s engagement in activitiesmaking use of text material in one or both languages may influencetheir literacy development in general and in the long term. However,in ‘‘nonmainstream communities . . . literacy practices might–or morelikely–might not match literacy practices in mainstream academic


communities’’ (Moss, 1994, p. 2). Therefore, the extent to which com-munity literacy resources contribute to specific academic outcomes isnot a given and has yet to be documented.

The present study addresses this issue through the following ques-tions regarding communities with large populations of Spanish-speaking children and families:

1. What is the relationship between community sociodemographic char-acteristics (e.g., income, educational level, and ethnic heterogeneity)and the language and literacy resources that exist in the community?

2. What is the relationship between community language and literacyresources and family literacy practices in English and Spanish?

3. What is the relationship between family literacy practices inEnglish and Spanish and children’s early reading achievement inEnglish and Spanish?

Ultimately the question we are addressing is to what extent com-munity sociodemographics (distal influences on family literacy practices)and community language and literacy resources and opportunities(proximal influences) facilitate or constrain family literacy practices,which then predict child literacy outcomes.

METHODS

This study is part of larger longitudinal study of language and lit-eracy development among Spanish-speaking children carried out in35 schools and communities in California and Texas. The Oracy=Literacy study developed a common set of data collection protocolsfor examining literacy development in English and Spanish, class-room instruction, family practices, and community characteristics.The present study focused on literacy development outside of school.Measures include individual assessments of children’s early literacyand oral language proficiencies in English and Spanish, neighbor-hood observational surveys, parent surveys, and principal, parentand child interviews, and teacher focus group interviews.

Sample Selection

We selected a total of 35 schools in urban California (12) and urbanand border Texas (12 and 11, respectively). Schools were selected in


order to maximize variability with respect to school program and com-munity characteristics. Yet we had to select schools with substantialLatino=ELL populations so that there would be sufficient childrenat each school (approx. 40 Spanish speaking ELLs=school in kinder-garten) to permit meaningful inferences for schools and communities.(Since this was to be a longitudinal sample, we also had to takeattrition into account.) Therefore, selection criteria required thatschools have at least 40% Latino enrollment overall and at least30% English language learner (ELL) enrollment in grades K and 1.These minimum percentages provided assurance of a sufficiently largeSpanish-speaking population at the school and in the community.Sixty percent of ELLs in California and Texas attend schools that havegreater than 30% ELL enrollment (August & Shanahan, 2006), so oursample schools were well within the typical range of ELL concen-tration in the two states where the study was conducted.

We furthermore sampled schools from a range of language pro-grams for ELLs: English immersion, transitional bilingual education,developmental (or maintenance) bilingual education, and dual-language bilingual education (see Genessee, 1999, for more infor-mation on each of these program models). Finally, we sampledschools in diverse community types: ethnically heterogeneous, ethni-cally homogeneous (i.e., almost exclusively Latino), mixed-incomeand low-income communities.

Because we wanted to study at least adequate exemplars withineach of these program categories, schools were rank ordered byachievement (Academic Performance Index, or API, in California;Texas Education Agency, TEA, ratings in Texas), within program(English immersion, etc.) and geographic site (urban and borderTexas; urban California). In one case, we recruited a Californiaschool that had a relatively low API score but that had high scoresin Spanish reading in grades 2–5 (64th–67th national percentile onthe Spanish Assessment of Basic Skills; CTB-McGraw Hill).

Data Collection

Parent survey. Parents were surveyed using a written questionnairesent home through the child’s classroom teacher. This protocolincluded questions in Spanish on family sociodemographics (occu-pation, length of time in the local community, education), parents’expectations regarding their children’s academic attainment and


performance, school-related interactions, reported home literacy andhomework practices, and the child’s behavioral adjustment. Of the1,865 parents we attempted to survey, 1,418 (76%) returned the sur-veys with at least some responses. Numbers are lower for the analysesdue to missing data.

Parent interviews with key informant families. A subset of familiesat each school was selected to be interviewed in greater depth, parti-cipating in three home interviews over the course of the school year.Children’s academic performance was rated by the teacher as high,medium, or low. For each school or program, four families were ran-domly selected for participation–one from the high group, two fromthe medium group, and one from the low group. Each interviewlasted approximately 90–120 minutes. Most interviewees were thechildren’s mothers; however, one family was headed by a singlefather, and fathers participated in some of the other interviews withthe mothers. Project-trained interviewers were bilingual; most werethemselves first- or second-generation Latino immigrants. The inter-views focused on family language and literacy practices, attitudes,and materials. Also included was information on how long parentshad lived in the local community, their perceptions about communityresources and safety, and their participation in church and othercommunity organizations. Parents were also asked about their ownschooling experiences in their home countries, their school and job-related experiences in the United States, and ways in which theybelieved that their experiences might influence their children.Detailed data about the children’s daily activities outside school, onboth weekends and weekdays, and the opportunities for children’sparticipation in literacy activities of different types in the communitywere collected, as well as parents’ perceptions of neighborhood pat-terns of language and literacy use and potential barriers to children’sliteracy development and academic progress.

School attendance area surveys (SAAS & SAAS-L). We surveyedthe school attendance neighborhood to assess languages heard andobserved in different neighborhood settings. We also collected dataon the types and condition of dwellings, the types and density of com-mercial enterprises, the presence and condition of recreational facili-ties such as parks and swimming pools, and the presence oforganizations (such as sports clubs) and institutions (such aschurches, libraries, health facilities etc.). Project investigators droveor walked each street in the neighborhood and stopped to observe


key areas such as parks, grocery stores, libraries, and recreation cen-ters (as available). Samples of free materials were collected. Observa-tional data were recorded in two ways: on precoded forms and inrelatively open-ended (but structured according to a common format)field notes where we made extensive notes on the characteristicsdescribed above. Field notes and coded survey protocols were aug-mented by photos and video footage taken to facilitate coding andwrite-up. Each survey took approximately 8 hours in the field, fol-lowed by approximately 10 hours of coding and field note write up.

Following completion of the SAAS and identification of keylocales in which literacy materials were most likely to be available(e.g., markets, bookstores, libraries, community centers), a secondsurvey focusing on literacy (SAAS-L) was carried out. In this survey,language use by participants in the setting was noted and textualmaterials (books, magazines, fliers, newspapers, greeting cards, andenvironmental print such as signs and notices) were coded forquantity, language, and type.

Principal interview and survey. Each school principal was inter-viewed for approximately 2 hours about characteristics of schoolfunctioning and culture that might influence students’ achievement.Specifically, principals were asked to describe the community inwhich the school was located, the families and children who attendedthe school, changes in the community and school over time, learningresources available or lacking in the local area, and school attemptsto involve parents and the community. Principals also filled out adetailed survey about student performance and a variety of factorsthat may be associated with performance: family and staff demo-graphic profiles, class size, policies involved in academic trackingand retention in grade, scheduling, available resources, and so on.

Teacher focus group interview. A focus group interview of approxi-mately 2 hours in length was carried out with 5–8 teachers from eachschool site. The teachers were chosen by the principals to represent arange of grade levels, number of years of experience in the teachingprofession, and, where applicable, to include both bilingual andmonolingual teachers. The teacher focus group protocol includedthe same questions and topics as those discussed with the principals.

U.S. census. U.S. Census data from 2000 were also gathered toprovide background demographics such as ethnic distribution, homeownership, family size, and so on for the census tract in which eachschool attendance area was located.


Student achievement. Trained research assistants administered theWoodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised in English andSpanish (Woodcock, 1991; Woodcock & Mu~nnoz-Sandoval, 1995).The WLPB-R is perhaps the most widely used assessment of languageand literacy achievement in the United States. It has parallel forms inEnglish and Spanish, thereby permitting comparisons of achievementwithin and across languages. We report scores on first grade basicreading (decoding and word recognition) and passage comprehension.

Family Sample Description

The total sample included 1,418 students selected at random fromclassrooms at the school with at least 50% Spanish-speaking ELLs. Alarge majority of parents were immigrants from Latin America, with76% of mothers (female head of household) and 75% of fathers(male head of household) from Mexico. Seventeen percent (17%)and 18% of mothers and fathers, respectively, were born in the Uni-ted States. Mothers averaged 11.4 years and fathers averaged 13.9years in the United States. The mean number of years of schoolingparents received was 9.1.

ANALYSIS

The analyses reported here represent a first step in trying to under-stand the complex relationships between family and community fac-tors on the one hand and Spanish-speaking children’s early readingattainment on the other. Although many possible analytical strategiesare available (e.g., regression, structural equation modeling) andother variables could be included in analyses (e.g., family demo-graphics), at this initial stage we use simple correlations to explorebivariate relationships that exist among community sociodemo-graphics, community language and literacy resources, and familyliteracy practices in English and Spanish. We also examine therelationship between family literacy practices and children’s first-grade reading achievement in English and Spanish. Our goal in thispaper is to report plausible, empirically grounded hypotheses thatfuture analyses will confirm or reject.

The data exist at two levels: community and family (including childlevel test data). Correlations involving community-level variables


were calculated at the community level with all 35 communities.Interpretation of these correlations is straightforward–the degree ofassociation between pairs of variables characterizing the communitiesin the study (e.g., mean income level and language heard in the com-munity). We report correlations that reached the standard .05 level ofsignificance.

Correlations involving family and child variables were calculatedat the family=child level; their interpretation is also straightforward–the degree of association between family literacy practices (e.g.,language in which parents read) and children’s reading achievement(e.g., passage comprehension in Spanish). Because of our very largesample, many weak correlations (below .10) were statistically signifi-cant at beyond the .001 level. In order to prevent interpreting trivialassociations (less than 1% of explained variance), we set the thresh-old for reporting correlations at the family=child level at .15, indicat-ing a bivariate relationship in which one variable accounts for morethan 2% of the variance in the other.

Analyses that involved both community-level (e.g., percent ofEnglish-only speakers in the census tract) and family-level (e.g., fre-quency of parents’ reading) variables present more of a challenge, sinceinterpretation of the correlations is less straightforward. We must beparticularly mindful of the ‘‘ecological fallacy’’ (Sirin, 2005), that is,making individual-level inferences from group-level data. Group-leveland individual-level analyses address subtly different questions, evenwhen they use the same variables. We therefore calculated the correla-tions involving community and family-level variables in two ways:

1. At the community level, by aggregating family-level data up, thatis, averaging values of all families within the community and usingthe resulting average as a community-level value. These correla-tions involve an N of 35 cases. They tell us the degree of associ-ation between community characteristics and average values inthe community on the family variables; but they tell us nothingabout whether community variables are associated with individualfamily characteristics.

2. At the individual family level, by assigning to each family thecommunity-level value that corresponds to the community-levelvariable. These correlations involve Ns of approximately 1,000,depending on missing family-level data. They tell us the degree towhich community characteristics are associated with family-level


characteristics. Although seemingly more meaningful intuitively, itis this type of analysis that is most prone to the ‘‘ecological fallacy,’’since ‘‘an individual-level inference is made on the basis of groupaggregated data’’ (Sirin, 2005, p. 419).

The general conceptual model underlying our analyses is depictedin Figure 1. A complete list of variables comprising each of the boxesin the conceptual model is provided in Table 1.

We hypothesized that more distal features of the environment,such as concentrations of speakers of one language or another, wouldbe associated with more proximal influences on children’s literacydevelopment such as availability of text materials or the languageof environmental print. The type, quantity, frequency and qualityof the text materials in L1 and L2 in the surrounding communitywould then influence the frequency and types of literacy practices car-ried out in the home in ways that ultimately would influence the chil-dren’s literacy development (see Figure 1).

RESULTS

Community Characteristics and Language and LiteracyResource Availability

The communities are located in urban, suburban, and semi-ruralsettings in Southern California, border Texas, and in two centrallylocated Texas cities. Some neighborhoods are almost exclusivelyLatino, where Spanish is the language heard. In other communities,Latinos occupy neighborhoods that include African American,White, Asian, and Pacific Islander populations as well. In some set-tings Spanish is heard but rarely seen in signage and printed materialsavailable for sale, while in other settings Spanish print predominates.

FIGURE 1. Conceptual Model of Hypothesized Relationships


TA

BLE

1.

Com

munity

and

Fam

ilyV

ariable

sU

sed

inth

eA

naly

sis

.

Com

munity

Socio

-Dem

ogra

phic

sC

om

munity

Language

and

Litera

cy

Resourc

es

Fam

ilyL1

and

L2

Litera

cy

Resourc

es,

Pra

ctic

es

Child

ren’s

L1

and

L2

Litera

cy

Develo

pm

ent

.%

Latino

popula

tion

HS

gra

ds

Language

resourc

es

Litera

cy

pra

ctices

Basic

readin

g

.%

Latino

popula

tion

belo

w

povert

y

.%

Eng

only

speakers

.#

of

adult

books

Englis

h

.M

edia

nin

com

e,

adju

ste

d

for

CO

L

.%

Spanis

h,

little=no

Englis

h.

#child

ren

books

.Letter

sound

identif

icatio

n

.%

Latino

popula

tion

.Language

heard

incom

munity

.F

requency

child

reads

on

ow

n

.W

ord

readin

g

Spanis

h

.C

om

merc

ial=

resid

ential

hete

rogeneity

.Language

used

by

child

ren

.F

requency

fath

er

reads

books

,m

agazin

es,

etc

.

.Letter

sound

identif

icatio

n

.Language

used

by

adults

.F

requency

moth

er

reads

books

,m

agazin

es,

etc

.

.W

ord

readin

g

.Language

used

by

all

.F

requency

child

goes

to

libra

ry(n

ot

schoollib

rary

)

Passage

com

pre

hensio

n

Litera

cy

resourc

es

Language

of

litera

cy

pra

ctices

.E

nglis

h

.T

ota

lbooks,

magazi

nes

for

sale

(exce

ptlib

rary

,booksto

res)

.F

requency

som

eone

reads

inE

nglis

hw=child

.S

panis

h

.T

ota

lbooks,

magazi

nes

.F

requency

som

eone

reads

inS

panis

hw=child

(Woodcock

Language

Pro

ficie

ncy

Batt

ery

-Revis

ed)

.#

libra

ries

.Language

child

reads

in

.#

books

tore

s.

Language

pare

nts

read

in

.%

pla

ces

w=new

spapers

.%

pla

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w=fr

ee

print

(Continued

)

121

TA

BLE

1.

Continued.

Com

munity

Socio

-Dem

ogra

phic

sC

om

munity

Language

and

Litera

cyR

esourc

es

Fam

ilyL1

and

L2

Litera

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es,

Pra

ctices

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ren’s

L1

and

L2

Litera

cy

Develo

pm

ent

Language

of

litera

cy

.Language

ofenvironm

enta

lprint

.%

books,m

agazi

nes

inS

panis

h

.%

books

for

adults

inS

panis

h

(except

libra

ry)

.%

magazi

nes

inS

panis

h

(except

libra

ry,

booksto

res)

.%

child

consum

able

sin

Spanis

h

.O

vera

llcom

munity

language

of

litera

cy

.Language

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merc

ialsig

ns

.Language

ofsocia

lserv

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sig

ns

122

In some communities, families live in quiet, predominantly residentialneighborhoods; other communities include shopping malls, small busi-nesses, and public service locales such as community centers, municipalbuildings, courthouses, and hospitals. Table 2 reports descriptive stat-istics for the community-level variables used in this part of the analysis.

Table 3 summarizes the associations between community socio-demographic characteristics (distal influences) and language and

TABLE 2. Community Descriptive Statistics.

Vriable N Mean SD Min Max

Community socio-demographic

characteristics (distal)

% Latino 35 72.6 25.1 14.0 98.7

% Latinos who are HS graduates 35 38.3 15.2 12.33 74.9

Commercial=residential

heterogeneity

35 2.9 .7 2 4

Median COL-adjusted income 35 $29,408 $8,843 $11,808 $44,127

Community literacy resources

(proximal)

Printed material for sale (excl.

libraries, bookstores)

35 65.9 94.0 0 432.5

Number of books and magazines 35 50,896 194,787 0 1,043,682

# of libraries 35 .2 .4 0 1

# of bookstores 35 .4 .8 0 3

Community language of literacy

resources (proximal)

Lang of signs, newspapers, free

printed material�35 3.6 .8 1.6 5.0

% of reading material for sale

in Spanish

35 12.9 21.9 0 100

Language of commercial signs� 35 4.0 .7 2 5

Language of social services

signs�35 3.8 1.0 1 5

Community language resources

(proximal)

% population speaks only English 35 29.8 22.8 3.0 85.4

% population speaks Spanish;

little or no English

35 22.5 11.4 1.3 50.4

Language heard around the

community�34 2.7 1.0 1 5

Language used in stores and

other establishments�35 3.2 1.0 2 5

�1 ¼ only Spanish, 2 ¼ mostly Spanish, 3 ¼ Spanish and English equally, 4 ¼ mostly

English, 5 ¼ only English.


TA

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tionship

Betw

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tal)

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(Pro

xim

alIn

fluences).

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Com

munity

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cy

and

Language

Resourc

es

(Pro

xim

alE

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Influences)

%Latino

%Latinos

who

are

HS

Gra

duate

s

Resid

ential=

Com

merc

ial

Hete

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nC

OL-

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dm

ate

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(excl

udin

glib

raries,

books

tore

s)

�.3

4.5

6.3

7

Num

ber

of

books

and

magazi

nes

.41

#of

libra

ries

�.4

6.3

6

#of

booksto

res

�.4

1.4

5

Language

of

litera

cy

mate

rials

Language

of

sig

ns,

new

spapers

,fr

ee

printe

d

mate

rial�

�.5

9.5

9

%of

readin

gm

ate

rialin

Spanis

h.4

2

Language

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124

literacy resources in the community (proximal influences) across the35 communities. Community language and literacy resources, suchas languages heard and seen, availability of books, and access to alibrary, vary according to community sociodemographics. The singlemost important variable among the community sociodemographiccharacteristics was percent of the census tract that is Latino. PercentLatino was correlated with 11 of the 12 languages and literacyresources shown in Table 3. Communities with greater concentrationsof Latino residents are less likely to have printed materials for sale,libraries, and bookstores. What materials are available have a greaterlikelihood of being in Spanish when a community has a higher con-centration of Latinos. Finally, and not surprisingly, concentrationof Latinos is associated with more use of Spanish in the community,among individuals, and inside stores and other establishments.

Higher income communities are more likely to have printedmaterial for sale, but income level had no relationship with any otherliteracy indicators. Communities with a greater percentage of highschool graduates among the Latino populace are also likely to havemore literacy materials than communities with fewer high schoolgraduates. Greater percentage of high school graduates is also asso-ciated with more materials in English and with more English use inthe community. Communities with greater residential=commercialheterogeneity (i.e., greater percentage of commercial land use in com-parison to residential) are more likely to have a greater number ofbooks, magazines, libraries, and bookstores; English is also morelikely to be heard in these communities.

Findings by Neuman and Celano (2001) and a three-case analysisby Smith, Constantino and Krashen (1997) that more literacy materi-als are available in higher SES neighborhoods are partly supportedby our findings. The income level of the community and the edu-cational level of the Latino population predict the amount of printedmaterial for sale in the community, but they do not predict any othermeasure of quantity of print available such as number of books andmagazines and number of libraries and bookstores. Highereducational attainment among the Latino community, however,was associated with more printed material in English. A contrastivecase analysis carried out in a pilot year of work in two of our parti-cipating communities also indicated that availability of text materialin Spanish did not follow the same pattern as that observed inEnglish. More Spanish materials were available in the lower income,


Latino neighborhood than in the higher income, predominantlyAnglo and English-speaking neighborhood (Reese & Goldenberg,2006). All three of the studies cited above are premised on theassumption that community availability of resources can=will playa role in children’s literacy development. Testing this assumptionforms the basis for the questions posed in the sections to follow.

Community Language and Literacy Resources (ProximalInfluences) and Family Literacy Practices

Are proximal community language and literacy resources associa-ted with families’ literacy practices in English and Spanish? Theanswer varies by category of resource: Community literacy resourcesshow very little relationship with family literacy practices. Com-munity oral language characteristics, in contrast, show stronger rela-tionships with family literacy practices, particularly family literacypractices analyzed at the community (rather than individual) level.

In this section we first report the absence of an association betweencommunity literacy and family literacy practices, followed by anillustrative case study of one of our communities that suggests anexplanation for the absence of the predicted association. In the nextsection, we report on the one domain of proximal communityresources–language use in the community–where we do see anassociation with family literacy practices, although in an unexpecteddirection.

Table 4 reports descriptive statistics for selected family-levelvariables (at the family level).

At the family level, we found very few correlations between com-munity literacy resources (identified in Table 2) and family literacypractices (shown in Table 4) high enough to meet our .15 threshold.Of the approximately 200 possible correlations, only 5 met the cri-terion: The number of books and magazines in the community wascorrelated with the frequency of reading to the child in English(.16) and the frequency that the child reads or looks at books in Eng-lish on his or her own (.25). The number of bookstores was associatedwith the child’s reading or looking at books more in English (.18).The quality of Spanish literacy materials was associated (.21) withchildren’s reading or looking at books more in Spanish. Onecorrelation was counterintuitive: The percentage of magazines inSpanish was associated (.19) with children reading more in English.


Expected relationships, such as the number of books available in thecommunity or presence of a library, on the one hand, and frequencyof reading at home or books for children and adults at home, on theother, did not emerge.

When we did the analysis aggregated at the community level, wefound only 4 significant correlations: language of commercial andsocial service signs each correlated (.37 and .32, respectively) withthe average number (across project participants in the community)of children’s books in the homes. Total books available in the com-munity predicted average frequency with which children were readto (.47); and the percentage of visited establishments that had freeprinted material predicted the frequency with which mothers reportreading (.34).

Why do we find relatively little evidence for the effects of proximalcommunity factors on home family literacy practices? Of course, it ispossible that the ecocultural theory upon which the hypotheses werebased is flawed (or only partially true), and, in fact, family practicesoperate relatively independently from the contexts in which familieslive. Or it might be that, although family practices are shaped byecological and cultural factors, other processes might be at work inwhich diminish potential relationships between community influencesand family practices. In the following section we will use one

TABLE 4. Family Literacy Practices.

Variable N Mean SD Min Max

Frequency of reading to child in English�� 1,314 2.4 1.4 0 4

Frequency of reading to child in Spanish�� 1,351 2.5 1.4 0 4

Child reading language� 893 2.4 1.4 1 5

Parents’ reading language� 1,402 2.1 1.2 1 5

# Adult books in the home 1,064 17.2 40.3 0 900

# Child books in the home 1,287 30.0 46.2 0 700

Frequency child reads on own�� 862 3.0 1.2 0 4

Frequency Mother reads�� 1,384 2.8 1.2 0 4

Frequency Father reads�� 1,288 2.2 1.4 0 4

�1 ¼ only Spanish, 2 ¼ mostly Spanish, 3 ¼ Spanish and English equally, 4 ¼ mostly

English, 5 ¼ only English.��0 ¼ almost never, 1 ¼ less than once a month, 2 ¼ 1–2 times a month, 3 ¼ 1–2 times a

week, 4 ¼ daily.�� 0 ¼ never, 1 ¼ less than once a month, 2 ¼ 1–2 times a month, 3 ¼ 1–2 times a week,

4 ¼ almost daily, 6 ¼ more than once a day.


community case study to illustrate ways in which family agencyworks to counter structural influences reflected in the distal andproximal community factors described above.

Community Case Study of Family Use of AvailableLiteracy Resources

The 35 communities included in our study include a wide range ofcharacteristics–from urban to semirural, from exclusively Latino topredominantly Anglo and English-speaking, from exclusively resi-dential neighborhoods to neighborhoods surrounded by strip malls,industrial parks, and shopping centers. While selection of a singlerepresentative community is close to impossible, the community sur-rounding Bell School, described below, is more or less typical of theSouthern California communities in our study. It is mixed withregard to ethnicity and language, while the school program hasswitched to English immersion as a result of California legislationpassed in 1998.

Community description. Bell Elementary School is located in thedowntown area of a mid-sized coastal city in Southern California.The community is predominantly Latino and low income, but atthe same time it is highly diverse with respect to ethnicity, language,SES and land use (residential=commercial=industrial). The neighbor-hood includes the civic center, with the city hall, court building,police department, and public library.

The major literacy resource in the community is the main library.A two-story building located in the civic center, it contains a largeselection of books, magazines, and media materials in English andsome materials in Spanish. Very little environmental print (such assigns, fliers) is in evidence in Spanish, or any language other thanEnglish. There are no bookstores in the school attendance areaneighborhood, but two are located close by; however, each of thesecontains very few books in Spanish. Few materials in the localdiscount grocery stores are available in either L1 or L2, but there is aWal-mart close by with materials in English. Again, however, thereare limited titles available in Spanish.

Survey data for the 40 participating families living in the Bell com-munity indicated that all parents were native speakers of Spanish andwere born outside of the United States. Parents averaged 7.4 years ofschooling. Mothers averaged 9.7 years in the United States, and fathers


slightly more (11 years). The great majority of families (92.5%) earnedunder $30,000=year, with 67% earning under $20,000=year.

Accessing ‘‘available’’ materials. Although materials may be avail-able in what we have determined to be the ‘‘community’’ (SchoolAttendance Area), they might not be equally accessible to all families.For example, three families described walking to the library becauseit was close; however, one family did not go because the children ‘‘notienen credencial ellos para sacar [libros], se me ha hecho muy dificilpara ellos’’ (‘‘they don’t have a credential [library card] to be ableto take out [books], I have found it to be very difficult for them’).The school principal explained that one of the requirements for alibrary card was a social security number and that this was a problemfor parents who were in the United States illegally.

Role of the school in providing materials for home use. At BellSchool, all four interviewees took advantage of the school libraryto check out materials for their children, stating that reading materi-als were not hard to obtain in their community because the schoolprovided them. One mother volunteered at school and checked outbooks: ‘‘Yo allı me voy de voluntaria y allı agarro el que yo quiero tam-bien’’ (‘‘I go there as a volunteer and there I take the books I wanttoo’). Daily homework is a school policy, and many teachers sendbooks home regularly. Another mother commented that her son‘‘est�aa estudiando los libros y haciendo lo que le dejan de tarea’’ (‘‘isstudying the books and doing what they send as homework’). Inaddition, the school periodically gives away books that it no longeruses. ‘‘En la escuela tambien ası les dan. De repente les dan su librode los que ya no ocupan, que ya tienen de m�aas, les dan que dos, que tresy ası.’’ (‘‘At school they also give them out. At times they give them abook from those that they don’t need any more, since they haveothers, they give out two or three, like that’’). The pattern of theschool’s providing of take-home reading materials and books,through the school or classroom libraries, was found across schoolsin the study.

It may be that because schools included in our study were higherachieving schools, they were more proactive than normal in compen-sating for lack of availability of books in the community. One teacherdescribed the role of the school as a service provider in the inner cityneighborhood where it is located: ‘‘If they have any questions about,you know, police, or being evicted, or welfare, or social security, theycome to school first even for help, even if they’re sick. They come to


school to get the answers or get referred to somewhere, to someagency for some assistance; so, they really value our school beingin this location.’’ It is possible that if there were a wider range inachievement levels represented in the schools participating in thestudy, we might also see greater variation in the extent to whichthe schools provided reading material to families. Regardless, in thissample of 35 schools we consistently heard reports of schools sendinghome homework and reading materials and making the schoollibraries available for parents and children to use. We suspect theseactions by schools help mitigate the effect of low levels of literacymaterials available in the community. Absent this school effect, weexpect we would have seen a greater impact of availability of com-munity literacy resources on children’s home literacy opportunities.

Accessing resources outside of the community. Although aspects offamilies’ daily routines may be constrained within the neighborhoodby what is within walking distance, particularly for low-income fam-ilies with a single vehicle that is used by one of the parents to go towork, families can and do go outside of their immediate neighbor-hoods for a variety of purposes and activities. Church attendance isan example of an activity that takes some families outside of theneighborhood. Most families in the study report attending church;all four Bell families attend Catholic mass at St. Mark’s, about 10blocks outside of their school attendance area neighborhood. AsCatholics, the families do not attend one of the three Protestantchurches located closer and within the neighborhood. At St. Mark’s,the church services are separated by language, which results in separ-ation by ethnicity. ‘‘Hay misa para los Latinos y hay misa para losgabachos’’ (‘‘There is one mass for Latinos and one mass for whitepeople’’), and families in our study all attend the Spanish mass. Chil-dren also attend catechism classes on Saturdays in the church’s edu-cation building, with classes available in Spanish for the youngerchildren and English for the older children. Some families report driv-ing to neighboring communities on occasion to attend church withrelatives. The church serves not only a spiritual role but also is asetting for language and cultural maintenance. Church attendanceappears to motivate families to go outside of their immediate neigh-borhood to access resources. We do not have evidence that literacymotivates families in a similar way.

Differential accessing of literacy materials by families and children.Regardless of how much is available in the community with respect to


books and print materials for sale or how easy or difficult it is toaccess a public library, families vary in how much they take advantageof these local resources. For example, one of the case study mothers isa volunteer at school in a program called Partners in Print. Althoughconcerned that her own level of schooling is not high (she has a secondgrade education), Mrs. Salinas nonetheless participated in training toenable her to read with children at school, and she faithfully volun-teered once a week to read in her daughter’s classroom. She reportedbeing able to bring home books for her child to use at home. Anothermother reported buying books often because her child requestedthem. On the other hand, one of the mothers stated that she did nottake her children to the library because it was too far away.

The actions and responses of these different parents illustrate howfamily activities, choices, and decisions operate either to offset thepotential constraints of the literacy environment in which they liveor to bypass literacy opportunities that do exist. Some parents chooseto participate in school parent activities, to take their children to thelibrary, and obtain second-hand books from the school. Families arenot bound by the limits of their neighborhood, traveling outside ofthe neighborhood to attend church, for example. At the same time,not all families seek out or take advantage of literacy opportunitiesin the community. This variability in family practices that existswithin communities will of course tend to diminish the correlationbetween community literacy resources and family literacy practices.Added to this variability, then, is the role the school plays in provid-ing books and materials for take-home use, further weakening thelink between community literacy resources and children’s literacyexperiences at home. The fact is that communities themselvesare not monolithic; individuals within them, supported by a keyinstitution–the school–make choices and take actions that influencechildren’s learning opportunities.

Community Language Resources and FamilyLiteracy Practices

While the availability of print materials per se appears to have noinfluence on family literacy practices, community language use and lan-guage characteristics show more of an association. Table 5 reports cor-relations between community language resources and family literacypractices, at the family level, that meet our .15 threshold for reporting.


When relationships between language use in the community andfamily practices are examined at the family level, correlations arerelatively few and of low magnitude. The correlations that do appearare between community language use and family language of literacy;however, no correlations between community language use and otherfamily practices, such as frequency of reading by child or parents, areevident. A somewhat stronger pattern emerges when the data areexamined at the community level. Table 6 reports correlationsbetween community language resources and family literacy practices,at the community level.

Tables 5 and 6 report surprising and complex findings for whichwe have no clear explanation. In brief, the tables suggest that

(a) more English speakers in the community are associated with morereading in Spanish by parents (row 1 of Tables 5 and 6) and morereading in Spanish to children (row 3 of Table 6); however,

(b) more English heard in the community has essentially no bearingon reading by children (row 2 of Table 6);

(c) more English heard in the community (but not language asgauged by census data) is associated with less reading by parents(rows 4 and 5 of Table 6).

TABLE 5. Community Language Use and Family Language of Literacy(Family Level Correlations).

Community Language

% Population

Speaks Only

English

% Population

Speaks

Spanish,

with Little=No

English

Language

Heard

Around the

Community�

Language

Used in Stores

and Other

Establishments�

Family

language

of literacy

Parents’ reading

language��.22 �.17 �.24

Child’s reading

language��.15

Frequency of

reading with

child in Spanish

.15

Note: All correlations significant at p� .05.�English ¼ high.


Finding (b) is probably due to the fact that children’s reading (andthe language of their reading) is more likely motivated by the schoolrather than any community characteristics. But what are we to makeof findings (a) and (c)? Our qualitative data provide no insights tohelp explain these findings. Analyses currently underway using multi-level analytical models might shed more light. All we can say withassurance is that community language characteristics bear somerelationship to family language and literacy practices. The natureof that relationship is yet to be fully understood.

Family Practices and Student Literacy Achievement

Finally we turn to the association between family experiences andfirst-grade reading achievement. Table 7 shows the descriptive statis-tics for the WLPB-R standard scores. Overall, children are scoringright at the national mean (100). Scores are higher in basic readingthan in reading comprehension and higher in Spanish than English.

TABLE 6. Community Language Use and Family Literacy (CommunityLevel Correlations).

Community Language

% Population

Speaks Only

English

% Population

Speaks Spanish,

with Little=No

English

Language

Heard

Around the

Community�

Language

Used in

Stores

and Other

Establishments�

Family

language

of literacy

Parents’

reading

language�

�.49 �.39 �.55

Child’s reading

language�

Frequency of

reading with

child in

Spanish

.35 .41

Family

literacy

practices

Frequrency

father reads

�.38 �.51

Frequrency

mother reads

�.41

Note: All correlations significant at p� .05.�English ¼ high.


Tables 8 and 9 report the correlations between family literacy prac-tices and children’s reading scores. What is most striking is that thereis virtually no correlation with measures of home literacy practicesthat are language-neutral, that is, with measures that index literacyexperiences, independent of language. However, there are moderatecorrelations between literacy practices in either English or Spanishand reading outcomes. As we saw in the relationships between com-munity literacy and family literacy, the language of literacy is akey dimension. Language of literacy–not literacy per se–connectscommunity influences, family influences, and child outcomes. SeeTables 8 and 9.

TABLE 7. WLPB-R First Grade Standard Scores, Reading Clusters.

Variable N Mean SD Min Max

Basic reading-English 1,353 104.5 18.3 50 181

Passage comprehension-English 1,439 98.0 15.4 47 137

Basic reading-Spanish 1,341 123.6 28.9 45 185

Passage comprehension-Spanish 1,431 100.0 18.9 33 131

TABLE 8. Correlations Between Family Literacy Practices and BasicReading.

Correlation with

Family Language of Literacy (More Eng ¼ High�) English Basic

Reading

Spanish Basic

Reading

Frequency of English reading with child – �.15

Frequency of Spanish reading with child – .30�Child’s reading language .31 �.53�Parents’ reading language .20 �.20

Family literacy practices

# adult books in the home – –

# child books in the home – –

Frequency child reads on own – –

Frequency father reads books, magazines, newspaper – –

Frequency mother reads books, magazines, newspaper – –

Frequency child goes to library – –

Frequency reading to child, any language – –

Note: All correlations significant at p� .001.


DISCUSSION

The analyses reported above represent an initial step in exploringrelationships among community and family inputs and children’s lit-eracy development in two languages. Our analyses were limited tosimple bi-variate correlations, which were sufficient for our purposes,but fail to control for confounds and variables measured at the indi-vidual and community levels. In addition, conducting a large numberof correlations raises the risk of spurious findings, since some smallpercentage of correlations will always appear statistically significant.We partly addressed this problem by setting a minimum threshold ofmagnitude (�.15) before reporting and interpreting correlations.Moreover, we attempted to find broad patterns among correlationsinvolving groups of variables (e.g., community characteristics, com-munity language, family literacy, family language of literacy; seeTable 1), rather than interpreting individual correlations. Analyses cur-rently underway will test hypotheses the current analyses have gener-ated while addressing the methodological limitations of what wereport here.

TABLE 9. Correlations Between Family Literacy Practices and ReadingComprehension.

Family Language of Literacy (More Eng ¼ High�) Correlation with

English Passage

Comprehension

Spanish Passage

Comprehension

Frequency of English reading with child .19 � .19

Frequency of Spanish reading with child � .16 .27�Child’s reading language .45 � .54�Parents’ reading language .28 � .20

Family literacy practices

# adult books in the home – –

# child books in the home – –

Frequency child reads on own .16 .15

Frequency Father reads books, magazines,

newspaper

– –

Frequency Mother reads books, magazines,

newspaper

– –

Frequency child goes to library – –

Frequency reading to child, any language – –

Note: All correlations significant at p� .001.


The findings are complex and not necessarily what we expected.First, and not surprisingly, community characteristics–ethnicity,education levels, residential=commercial mix, and income–areassociated with literacy and language resources in the community(Table 3). Second, and very surprising, there is no associationbetween literacy resources in the community and literacy practicesin families. In other words, families in relatively ‘‘high literacy com-munities’’ did not report more literacy in the home than did familiesin ‘‘low literacy communities.’’ The Bell case study material suggeststwo possible explanations: (1) schools’ outreach efforts, includingsending homework, making libraries available, etc., tended toincrease literacy inputs into the families, regardless of the disparitiesin the community resources from one community to the next and (2)parent agency–parents might or might not take advantage of literacyresources in their communities and in nearby communities, so therewas no direct line between community literacy resources and familyliteracy practices.

Patterns of language use in the community, however, including thelanguage of literacy materials that were available, appear to be agreater influence (to the extent correlations can be interpreted cau-sally) on home reading practices. The patterns of relationships weobserved reveal the importance of considering what language is beingused in the community and in which language texts are available.These are what have a bearing on home literacy practices. Finally,home literacy practices appear to have language-specific effects onearly literacy development. For children of immigrants growing upbilingually, it is not enough to examine the quantity of materials orfrequency of literacy activities in general. It is necessary to take intoaccount the language in which these occur, since the language influ-ences home language and literacy practices, which in turn influencechildren’s literacy development.

The study also found that communities with higher percentages ofLatino residents are more likely to include fewer English-only speak-ers and fewer literacy resources such as books and magazines for sale.This implies that Spanish-speaking families may have to work harderto access books to read to and with their children than do familiesliving in more affluent and English-speaking environments.

The children in our study live in communities that are surprisinglydifferent in terms of socioeconomic status, ethnic heterogeneity, andresidential=commercial mix. These communities offered varying


opportunities for resident families to use and hear English and=orSpanish and to obtain literacy materials in each language. However,as we have seen, the community context does not determine familypractices. Families demonstrate considerable variability with respectto the frequency, types, and language(s) of literacy activities carriedout by parents and children, exhibiting agency in taking advantageof materials available locally as well as outside of their immediateneighborhoods.

Despite the puzzling findings about community language and fam-ily language and literacy activities, the take-home message for educa-tors and practitioners is, therefore, a cautionary one: Children’s homeliteracy opportunities cannot be predicted by the communities inwhich they live and by the resources that those communities offer.The families in the study vary considerably in the literacy opportu-nities they provide their children, but this variability has little to dowith literacy resources in the communities where they live. Rather,agency at both the family level and the school level–what parents,children, and teachers do and the decisions they make–makes a dif-ference in terms of children’s performance in school.

The findings reported here represent an initial attempt to organizeand interpret data on a complex set of processes, and findings shouldbe seen as preliminary. Further data are needed to see if the patternsidentified here continue as children progress in school and in their lit-eracy development. Lack of correlation between family literacy prac-tices (not tied to a specific language) and children’s literacyperformance may hold true for the early literacy measures used inour study of children in kindergarten and grade one but may notbe the case when reading tasks become more demanding and mea-sures of reading comprehension become more complex. Futureresearch must therefore study language and literacy development intomiddle elementary grades and beyond.

In addition, comparative research is needed with monolingualEnglish samples. This would help clarify the role of dual-languagesettings in the processes of community and family influences onthe literacy development of the children in our sample. The bilingualenvironments in which Spanish-speaking children live introduce alayer of complexity in the study of language and literacy dev-elopment; parallel comparative studies with monolingual popula-tions could help clarify more precisely the role these bilingualcontexts play.


Finally, there is a great need for the sort of detailed micro-analysisamong bilingual populations that Hart and Risley (1995) conductedwith a monolingual population. In the absence of such data, wecan only guess about the quality and quantity of linguistic input thesechildren receive and what its cognitive and linguistic consequencesare. Given the large and growing language-minority population inthe United States, and the large number of bilinguals world–wide,this is a gap we should address.

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